Affirmative action is based on the very fight for civil rights. It is based upon the fact that every human being, regardless of sex, race, creed, or other difference, should be given a fair and equal chance in all aspects of employment and education. By providing awareness of these other aspects of a person’s profile, affirmative action provides opportunities for equal employment, a diverse workplace and academic environment. It widens the market areas for the enrolment of the best talent. Affirmative action is still, by far, the most effective and meaningful process devised by the government for equal opportunity. Affirmative action has a strong and needy place in our cultural, political, and academic society today, and should be defended with the utmost respect.
The day we do not need Affirmative action is the day the country, and the world, is at peace. That is the day in which there is no racism. But this day is not a reality. People of today judge someone based of religion, mental stability, color of their skin, sexual orientation, and other factors, as well accent in some cases. Hate crimes make up of 83% of all biased crime, according to a FBI report from 1995. There is no doubt these numbers have only increased. In a day of enlightenment, we are a people held prisoners by our mind and our mind’s perception of society’s wants.
The 7,947 incidents involved 9,895 separate offenses, 10,469 victims, and 8,433 known offenders.
Aggravated assault: 13 percent.
Twenty persons were murdered in hate-motivated incidents.
As in previous years, hate crimes in 1995 were most frequently directed at individuals.
Individuals comprised 83 percent of all reported bias crime victims for the year.
Businesses, religious organizations, and varied other targets comprised the remaining 17 percent.”1
Affirmative action is the government policy and law that is designed to equalize past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities. It does not set hard quotas, set numbers, for reverse discrimination. It is the reminder to consider actively underprivileged candidates for a particular position, need it be educational or other. While not including hard quotas, it does require the educational facility or employer to actively go and enroll, maintain, and guide to people who would not necessarily be considered for those positions.
In 1961, resident John F. Kennedy Issued Executive Order 10925, which created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and directs that projects financed with federal funds through this committee take “affirmative action” to guarantee that when hiring and employing, those practices are free of racial bias. Many people were confused by what the President was making reference to, as this is the first mention of affirmative action in our country’s history. The laws also did not specify how one was to make sure their practices were free of racial bias. in 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights act, which forbids discrimination if any kind based upon race, color, religion, or national origin. Affirmative action is directly stated within his press conferences, and he states “We seek ... not just equality as a right and a theory, bit equality as a fact and as a result.”2
Johnson was an advocate of affirmative action, stating at Howard University in 1965 that civil rights laws alone are not enough to remedy discrimination and racism. His main concept was that you do not just magically stop a nations hate for others. You do not take what has happened to them, and ignore it like it has never happened. You cannot expressed the recently un-oppressed to not feel the resentment that has lingered for so long. It does not fade with a snap of the fingers; it takes time to heal a social wound. Executive Order 11246, issued by Johnson, requires the government contractors to take affirmative action in their hiring processes. It specifically states that they must take measures to ensure the equal status during hiring, and must also document these measures taken. This order was thus amended in 1967 to also cover discrimination based on gender.
The Philadelphia Order, initiated by Nixon, was a program to guarantee fair employment opportunities in construction jobs. Philadelphia was chosen as the test case because, as assistant secretary of labor Arthur Fletcher explained, “The craft unions and the construction industry are among the most [unreasonable] offenders against equal opportunity laws... openly hostile toward letting blacks into their closed circle”2 This order included definite timetables and goals. It did not impose quotas, but did request documentation of the growing opportunity for minorities.
In 1978, Allan Bakke, a white male applying to the University of California, Davis, Medical School, was rejected twice even though there were minority students accepted into the school. Allan claimed these students had lower test scores and academic quality as he had. UC’s program was that they had two separate admissions pools. one was for standard applicants (mostly whites, if not all), and the other more minority and economically disadvantaged students. The school directly had a quota stating 16 of their 100 slots were reserved for the second pool applicants.
Bakke stated that judging him on the basis of race was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled that although race is a legitimate factor in admissions, the use of such stiff and static quotas was not. The Court was split 5-4 in their decision, and only addressed a small sampling of the issues with affirmative action. This landmark case imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure that the opportunities secured by the law did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority. Affirmative Action is unlawful if it leads to reverse discrimination through quotas.
Although strict quotas such as 16:100 is unconstitutional, in another case titled Fullilove vs. Klutznick, the Court ruled that flexible quotas were constitutional. They agreed with a federal law stating that 15% of funds for public works be set aside for qualified minority contractors.
Taking into consideration that Jim Crow laws and lynching existed well into the 1960’s as acceptable means of society towards black, having conservatives impatient for blacks to "get over" the legacy of slavery needed to realize that slavery was just the beginning of racism in America. Liberals should be quick to point out the argument that because of affirmative action, minorities are threatening the jobs of whites, belittles the reality of the current job market. White Males hold 95% of the CEO and management positions today, while they only make up 45% of the complete work force. They are paid more, thought of as more experienced, and given the better job.
During the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, women and minorities were inspired to fight together for increased equality and opportunity within our society. The more they fought, and the more they succeeded, the more they were opposed and chastised by the self-imposed critics, men and whites. They viewed as still do view affirmative action as a form of reverse discrimination, even when this has been proved to only be agreed upon in cases involving set quotas. In retrospect, it has already been stated that set quotas is illegal, while floating quotas (percentages) are not, and do not force and discrimination, reverse or otherwise.
Michigan is a state that has reveled in its amount of segregation. Even now, they K-12 grades there are for the most part, segregated by skin color and race. 83% of blacks and other minorities are in segregated schools during these grades. University of Michigan’s white students, mostly from Michigan, reported having litter or no contact with minorities before attending college. In Michigan, and other schools in our nation, affirmative action s essential to breaking down segregated restrictions in the educational environments.
Back in 1997, there were two lawsuits towards University of Michigan. They weird filed by Jennifer Gratz, an unsuccessful applicant to the undergraduate school of literature, arts and sciences, and Barbara Grutter, an applicant to the law school. Both claimed that they were denied admission because of the university's requirement to meet their quotas. In doing so, these girls stated the university had admitted students of lesser value based on their scoring capabilities. Community leaders, community groups, and prospective undergraduates filed a suit to intervene that affirmative action was necessary to the university. Their basic argument was that without said affirmative action, there would be no method of fighting discrimination within UM. Also, that in the absence of such a program, there would be no effort to recruit minorities or to retain them as students because there is the perception they are not as qualified. From the Sixth Circuit of the law school has come back ruling that states affirmative action is legitimate means to promote diversity in an educational environment.
Before the implementation of affirmative action, University of Michigan was virtually 100% white. Statistics prove this. The below table shows the number of white students in ratio to the number of black and other minority students from 1960 to 1979.
| Year | # of White Students | # of Black and other |
| 1960 | 239 | 1 |
| 1961 | 255 | 0 |
| 1962 | 240 | 1 |
| 1963 | 334 | 1 |
| 1964 | 293 | 0 |
| 1965 | 297 | 1 |
| 1966* | 353 | 0 |
| 1967 | 350 | 0 |
| 1968 | 330 | 0 |
| 1969 | 350 | 5 |
| 1970 | 245 | 9 |
| 1971 | 350 | 11 |
| 1972 | 418 | 20 |
| 1973 | 446 | 41 |
| 1974 | 342 | 19 |
| 1975 | 357 | 31 |
| 1976 | 368 | 29 |
| 1977 | 376 | 38 |
| 1978 | 356 | 36 |
| 1979 | 378 | 28 |
*- affirmative action implemented this year
UM is not the only college effected by the powers to fight affirmative action. Briefly, University of California has ruled against affirmative action in 1999, and in doing so has lost 33% of their women faculty. Before this removal of affirmative action, there was an average of 10.3% blacks in the incoming freshman classes. For the incoming freshman class of 2000, using ‘exclusive minority outreach programs, socioeconomic affirmative action, and holistic admissions review”, there were 1.4% blacks.
With the University of Texas Law School, the Latino/a enrolment has been cut in ½ since affirmative action was outlawed in 1995. Between 1994 - 1996, there were 14 Filipino/a students enrolled in University of California at Berkley’s Booalt Hall of Law. From 1996 - 2002, after the elimination if affirmative action, there were 3 students enrolled in those 4 years. University of Georgia attempted to go to an only academic admissions process, utilizing a system called the Total Student Index developed to increase the student’s minority population without affirmative action. the system admits up to 1/5 of its freshman class of minorities who have lower academic achievements in order to increase diversity. This is creating more reverse discrimination than affirmative action ever did, because they are acknowledging the inability of their minority students and are turning away more capable students in the process.
LSAT and SAT tests are also known to be biased towards whites. In plain text, If a black UM graduate with a 3.7 GPA takes the test, he will score on average 9.2 points lover than a white UM graduate with a 3.7 GPA.
The statistics prove there is no reverse discrimination in the majority of the claims filed by these white males. Affirmative action provides the employer or education institution with the largest pool of qualified workers from which to choose. It does not mandate that one much hire or accept a minority over another if the minority cannot do the job. It does not specify the use of quotas in order to increase the minority representation on a campus or in the work force. Programs that do compromise a valid job or educational requirement are illegal and are NOT affirmative action methods.
As Justice Harry Blackman stated, “In order to get past racism, we must first take account of race. And in order to treat someone equally we must first treat him or her differently.” In order to eradicate racism and hatred in our society, we must first recognize its presence. We cannot pretend it is not there, or that the problem will fix itself. Aren’t we the people of this nation, the leaders of tomorrow? If we are, then its time to step up and take the challenge, the challenge to fight for our right to be treated equally.
[1] Preliminary figures show 7,947 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI during 1995. The incidents were reported by more than 9,500 law enforcement agencies in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Participating agencies covered 75 percent of the U.S. population.
FBI - Uniform Crime Reports - Hate Crime Statistics 1995. 12 Dec. 2002 .
[2] Brunner, Borgna. Bakke and Beyond. 12 Dec. 2002. .
